What lies at the center of our galaxy?

The story behind the answer

A black hole sits at the Milky Way’s center: Sagittarius A* (pronounced “A-star”), a supermassive black hole about 4 million times the Sun’s mass. Astronomers confirmed it by tracking nearby stars (like S2) whipping around an invisible, compact object and, in 2022, by imaging its shadow with the Event Horizon Telescope.

The other options don’t fit: a supernova is a short-lived stellar explosion, a quasar is a brilliantly active galaxy nucleus (our center is relatively quiet), and wormholes are purely hypothetical. Memory tip: “At the heart is a hole”—galactic centers gravitate toward the deepest gravity wells. Sgr A* lies ~26,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius and is a strong radio source.